


Run, York, Run

by threewalls



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Archades, Bureaucracy, Chocobo Fancying, Chocobos, Gen, Magister Fancying, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-28
Updated: 2007-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Basch <s>tames</s> gains a new chocobo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run, York, Run

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to lynndyre, for beta and encouraging me start to finish. The title(s) are hers. And also to sheffiesharpe, for writing Basch with chocobos and inspiring, and encouraging, me to do the same.

"Some hunters brought him in. Spelled with sleep." As soon as he had Gabranth's attention, Pyrand turned back to the balcony. "It wore off mid-transport, allegedly. They haven't been able to settle him since."

"Him?" Gabranth's eyes narrowed to look more closely over the balustrade. Hens were uncommon enough in the city, though they made better mounts: better temper, better speed. Cocks stayed on the stud farms where they had use.

"A bull chocobo, they're saying, caught all the way out in the Jagd Yensa. A curiosity for our Lord Emperor's menagerie. They were expected--"

Pyrand drew out the pause while gesturing vaguely below, at the guards chasing a chocobo over the formally landscaped grounds stretching out towards the palace's own transport terminal. " _This_ was not."

Pyrand chuckled, amused more for the break in routine than whatever might have caused it. The other magister was city-born and bred, though he'd seen provincial tours enough to befit his station. He proved the rule rather than the exception about the their preference for transportation by airship, wherever possible.

Gabranth watched the bird run, easily outpacing his pursuers, who were all on foot. The bird was the inky grey that still fell within the breeder's definition of black, perhaps larger than average, though the distance and his speed made that hard to estimate.

He had not a personal mount for years, borrowing instead from the army stables when his duties required it of him, and that was rare enough. He missed that speed in open air, the meaningful tension of muscle between his thighs, never fighting alone, not even in the thick of battle. But, there had been much for him to learn here: a new city, fighting style, laws; he known that he would not be able to give a bird the care she deserved. A good friend had once said that he doted on his birds, and perhaps, Gabranth thought, he had learnt enough of what he must by now to do so again.

Outside, there was a small explosion. "--And then there's always one of the museums," Pyrand said, pitching his voice to carry down the stairs Gabranth took double-time.

\---

"Stand down."

A magister's presence in the plaza snapped the guards to attention, like ripples over a pond. All exits were manned by one or more guards, though most soldiers had scattered to regroup where they might avoid blasts from either the hunters or the chocobo itself.

Gabranth found Hausen on the outer rim, nodded at him and four others to fall in at his side, and ordered the remainder to reinforce the exits. Hausen reported promptly, without making excuses for the chaos, and finished on the wry note that he might move the planned review of aerodrome security protocols earlier in the month. Gabranth sent him to the armoury.

Magisters did not run, and this was not merely a matter of dignity. Gabranth missed light armour.

The four men still in pursuit of the chocobo, two hume, two bangaa, were the hunters Pyrand had mentioned, and they had the only hand-bombs. Gabranth knew every one of the guards by name, ability and disposition, and none of them would have been so careless. The smoke on the wind carried the scent of unburnt mist, but even so, chocobos were highly immune to almost any spell that ammunition could contain.

Ahead of Gabranth, an ornamental fountain exploded.

"Stand down," he repeated. "Archades will not pay for a dead bundle of feathers."

"Says who?" called out one of the bangaa.

"Judge Magister Gabranth." His mother's maiden name was almost second nature to him now, as it should be, as it must. "I am authorised to negotiate payment."

As a group, the hunters changed direction. The chocobo skittered to a halt beyond them, and rounded back to keep his pursuers in sight.

Gabranth strode clear through the knot of hunters, ordering the judges in his train to detain them, confiscate their weapons. Without breaking stride, he moved into a mage's stance and cast a mid-strength curative spell over the chocobo.

The bird snorted as the magic took hold, and then cocked his head to the side, staring at Gabranth in a way that seemed to want to pierce his helm.

Basch removed it, pausing only briefly to set it down upon an unbroken paving stone before continuing forward.The chocobo puffed out his feathers but stood his ground, scratching deep tracks into what was usually immaculately tended lawn. Somewhere, Tecla, the groundskeeper, would be plotting all their deaths.

Once, when Basch was too young to see the approaching storm, he had thought that mucking out stables was the closest he would ever come to a martial life. They had played with the chicks then to gentle them to humes, but he'd never learnt how mature wild birds were broken in. What he could imagine, he hoped would not be necessary.

At forty paces distant, thirty-five, the chocobo began to snap his notched beak in Basch's direction. He did not run, however, which Basch took as cautiously encouraging. At twenty paces, he allowed his stride to slow.

The chocobo showed signs of distress from his captivity, but not injury; he had not limped to run and his wings hung as they should. His feathers were tangled, and stank of a thick, feral musk that made them bright in the late afternoon sunlight. However, it was his dark eyes that demanded Basch's attention. The chocobo tracked him with an persistence that went beyond the avion intelligence and curiosity of the breed, and an intensity that concentrated as the distance between them narrowed.

At ten paces, Basch moved no faster than walking. At seven, the chocobo's beak bit out again, though too far to Basch's side to be accidental, surely. He could hear his father's patient voice, _wild birds only look like ours, Basch; if you ever come across one, let it be_ , but he had come so far from the boy who would have needed such advice. Basch took the last three steps forward, trusting in hope. The chocobo made a rough, low sound, more a growl than bird-call, his breath sour on Basch's face. He cocked his head, raising his beak-- Basch shut his eyes.

And then, something hot and slick touched his temple, brushed slantwise down over his left eye. Basch mastered himself, and risked slowly opening his right. The chocobo's grey-blue tongue came at him again, leaving a wet trail across his forehead. It tickled.

Measuring his movements, Basch unfastened the straps on his left gauntlet and then pulled the glove down. He raised his bare hand alongside his face, while those dark eyes watched, and received a third stripe that lingered across his palm.

The chocobo snorted once more, and sharply turned his beak down and away. Basch blinked, and felt a curious surge of nostalgia he could not explain. He reached out his bare hand, stroking lightly over bird's exposed neck to where his wing began.

The bird twitched his tail feathers, once, twice, but did not shy, did not bite, and the passes of Basch's hand grew firmer with repetition. Emboldened by the acceptance, he stepped closer and allowed his fingers to sink deep through the oily plumage, seeking out the hard, brittle sheathes to be found at the feathers' base. A chocobo would use her beak to strip them, but hume fingers were more agile. Moreover, Basch focused his attention on the feathers at the base of the bird’s skull, beyond a bird’s own reach. He was rewarded with soft murrs, and the chocobo’s neck arching towards his touch.

"Good bird," Basch whispered, leaning forward.

The chocobo's head snapped suddenly away to his front, beak flashing, feathers shaking out.

Hausen stood at six paces distant, holding a halter of iron and red-brown leather, and Gabranth's helm balanced on the bend of his other arm. "Sir?"

The chocobo growled, and shifted his weight forward. The movement pressed him more firmly against Basch's armour.

Basch held out his gauntlet towards Hausen in exchange for the halter, while stroking with his other hand calmingly over the chocobo's flank. He could feel the growl continuing, vibrating through underneath his fingers. There was grit-- sand-- caught close to the chocobo's skin; Basch was struck again by the feeling of jarring familiarity. Strange, when he had not had a black in Dalmasca.

"Do you think it wise--"

Basch stared patiently at the judge. As Master of Security, Hausen was not Basch's to be running errands, but he was subordinate to Gabranth's rank and honourable enough to seek promotion openly, through action rather than assassination.

"Yes, sir." Hausen nodded, advanced to take the gauntlet, and returned to his place.

The chocobo glanced back at Basch, and the halter. But then, Hausen moved, the plates of his armour grinding against each other; the chocobo's head swerved back in his direction.

Basch reached for the bird's beak, holding it firmly shut.

He expected the chocobo to struggle, but the bird went completely still, the one eye he could see focused unblinking on Basch. Basch exhaled his relief. He slipped the halter over the bird’s beak and his head, settled the shaped plate armour against his skull. Basch adjusted each of the buckled leather straps to fit safely and securely. It looked good, he thought, the colour making the deep grey of the bird's feathers seem a warmer hue.

The chocobo took a moment to realise his head had been released, but then he shook, from his head to his tail, testing the limits of the tack. It was only demi-shaffron, and did not impede his range of his beak, nor did the lead rope that Basch held in his gauntleted hand, arm slack to follow the bird's motion. The bird soon discovered where that rope led, and his head again drew near to Basch's bare face.

They ignored Hausen's armour.

The chocobo's tongue was as hot as before, his breath still foul, yet Basch felt himself smiling.

\---

"But we caught it. The bill said--"

Unlike Gabranth, the emperor had not required introduction. A gangly youth of fifteen, his presence had caused all the guards in the plaza to kneel, and he would not be interrupted.

"--Despite the damages wrought by the animal and your reckless pursuit of it, I will accept your offer of the animal as a gesture of compensation and good faith, and furthermore, in my imperial generosity, I will decline to press charges."

Basch watched the hunters escorted back to their ship. He thought of unfastening his own purse, but knew the gesture would be mistaken. No true Archadian would pay for what he might obtain gratis.

"I will also overlook your being somewhat out of uniform, Gabranth."

Larsa's steps were soundless on the grass, as light as his armour. With an eyebrow quirked to lessen the sting of formality, he gestured with one white imperial glove at Hausen, who again offered Basch his magister's helm.

Basch transferred his hold on the chocobo’s lead from one hand to the other, the one bare and sticky with feather oils, and then replaced the helm with the one that was free. When he spoke, the voice that echoed from his helm was his brother's.

“What will you do with the bird?”

“I must confess that after all this... excitement, I am rethinking whether my menagerie would be the most suitable home for this particular creature,” Larsa said, as he stepped closer.

Gabranth wound the lead twice about his hand, thinking of Pyrand's museums. No Archadian would turn loose a creature once caught.

“As you were the one to subdue the creature, it seems fit its care should fall to you, if you should wish it.”

“I-- thank you, Lord Larsa.” Gabranth bowed his head, and after several moments more, his hand crept up to rest upon the bird's back. The chocobo had begun to growl again.

A tiny figure high above and down the plaza, Pyrand was applauding with his hands held over his head, and shouted something that could not be heard.

"York," called the chocobo, and then snapped his beak at Larsa.

**Author's Note:**

> And now, omake, also with further nods to lynndyre, who came up with many of Balthier's lines.
> 
> \---
> 
> Balthier: "Not being Archadian by birth, some of the slang employed by your fellow judges might be passing you by."
> 
> Basch: "I think I can guess what they mean by 'feather-fucker'."
> 
> *There is a brief pause.*
> 
> Balthier: "Otherwise known as 'bareback wrangling,' or, in more polite company: 'chocobo fancying'. You may have heard it described in Dalmasca as 'being from the plains'."
> 
> York: *snap*
> 
> Balthier: *bleeds*
> 
> Fran: "Cure."
> 
> Basch: *not laughing, truly*


End file.
